John
F. Thornell and his P-51B Mustang

The man ...

John F. Thornell was a leading ace of famous 352nd FG "Bluenosers".
Toprnell was an "early" ace of the 8th Air Force. After a
finished combat tour in Europe he returned to the States in Autumn
1944. Despite that the war lasted for almost one more year and
the 352nd had plentiful occasions to harass the Luftwaffe, only two
other pilots managed to surpass Thornell's score: John Meyer and George
Preddy.

... the machine ...

Majority of Thornell's kills were scored while flying this very
aircraft nicknamed "Patty Ann II". The plane was repainted
couple of times, but in May 1944 it looked like shown on my model.

... and the model.

This is excellent 1/48 Tamiya P-51B. The kit is uilt striaght out of
the box with exception of all interior, which was replaced by the
phenomenal Aires set. Other modification were limited to aileron
and flap actuators that were removed and replaced by steel pipes and
photoetched horns. THe additional bomb was also provided by Aires.

Entire plane was sprayed with SnJ Aluminium. The blue nose was
painted with Humbrol enamel no. 109. The shade was selected based on
the references which indicate that during that period the 352nd used a
somewhat lighter shade of blue for its famous nose markings.

Letters PE-T were sprayed with Humbrol 85 Coal Black using
homemade vinyl masks. National insignia were taken from an
Aeromaster sheet. The nickname, serial number and victory marks were
all printed with Alps MD 5000 printer.

As a summary I can say that I love Tamiya Mustangs, SnJ, vinyl masks
and Alps printers!

Additional images, click to enlarge

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